Jake Bilben (No. 309) and teammate Andy Kern pushed hard up the hill at Pincushion while Abby Stoddard (No. 351) and Rusty Day (No. 266) sprinted to the finish line in the Polar League Conference meet held October 9 at Pincushion Mountain trail system. It was a perfect day for running and the Viking boys’ and girls’ teams each finished 3rd in the conference.
On Wednesday, October 9, 2013 the teams in the Polar League had the opportunity to run true cross country. Our course at Pincushion Mountain is tough with varying terrain, hills, dry and wet areas, and longer grass. In other words this isn’t a golf course, which is where most of our races are run. Going into this race we knew that our toughest competition would be Esko, Moose Lake/Willow River/ Barnum, and South Ridge. It is nice to have a decent field to run against.
The winner of the boys’ race was Trenton Menor from Esko with a time of 18:27.7 and the winner of the girls’ race was Kailee Kiminski of Esko with a time of 15:20.
In the junior high race, Finn Garry came in 2nd place and improved his time from the beginning of the season by about a minute and a half as he finished the 2.5-kilometer race in 9:36. Will Ramberg also knocked off that much time. Jake Bilben and Andy Kern improved their times by almost three minutes. It is fun to see so much improvement in these young runners; their hard work has paid off.
In the girls’ race Audrey Summers finished in 4th place and earned the All-Conference title by finishing within the top 10; she ran the 4k race in 16:41. Abigale Seipke is coming back with a tough competitive drive. On this day she was our third runner and ran at time a of 18:03. Mel Stoddard has been our 7th varsity runner and has worked hard to improve her times. She made about a 20-second improvement and ran her 4k in 21:10. Patricia Mueck, an exchange student from Austria attending Two Harbors High School, had a solid race. She has a tremendous work ethic and a great attitude and each race she works to do her best. It has been fun to see her improve not only in pace but also in the distance that she is able to run.
Joey Chmelik led our boys’ team to a 3rd place finish and ran 18:39 for the 5k. He also earned an All-Conference title along with Kiviok Hight who finished in 7th place with a time of 18:43. These two are becoming good teammates who help each other race better. Owen Cruikshank, from Two Harbors, has had a few ups and downs within his races this year. On this day he really went after it and found himself running his 5k in 21:44, which was over a minute improvement from the beginning of the season. Donovan Rigdon, a 10th grader from Two Harbors, is new to cross country but he has been determined and each day he pushes himself in practice. He continues to be a steady runner who is making steady improvement. It will be fun to see how much he will improve in seasons to come, as he is a motivated athlete.
Drew Christensen, a senior from Two Harbors, had over a two-minute improvement on this course from the beginning of the season. Today he started strong, he stayed focused, he kept his attitude positive and he went after the competition, which helped him to gain a better time and place. He ran his race in 22:04 and was 18th in the junior varsity race.
Our next—and last race for some—will be the Proctor Invitational on Tuesday, October 15.
Following that will be our section 7A meet. This is the race that determines who will go on to the state meet. This meet will take place on Thursday, October 24 at 11a.m. and 11:45 a.m. at the Cloquet Golf Course. Come cheer on our Vikings!
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